The Whole Works of King Alfred the Great

seated, a device copied from the coins of Valentinian and others of the lower empire. LONDONIA

in monogram.

ANDREW MOORE ESQ. M. D. PL. VII, FIG. 3.

I do not myself consider this to be a coin of Alfred. On the contrary I prefer reading the obverse legend ALF DENE XRX+, which is precisely the reading on the obverse of a half-penny found with this at Cuerdale, and assigning it to Halfdene I, whose dominions were properly Northumbria, but who, in common with the other sea-kings, ravaged the whole island. Whether, however, it be considered to be of Alfred or of Alfdene, it answers the same end, of serving as a connecting link between the coin. of Ceolwulf and those which follow, of London. Of these, upwards of fifty specimens are now known, the principal varieties of which will be found in Plate III. All have on the obverse the bust of the king, generally turned to the right, but in three instances to the left, and on the reverse the monogram of LONDON.

It is not improbable that this coin may have been minted by the authority of Ethelred, the brother of Alfred, who appointed him to the government of London. The obverse legend is more like his name than that of Alfred: still it is but a blundered specimen.

The last five are half-pennies, all that are known of this class of Alfred's coins, and the earliest specimens that have occurred in the English series of this denomination of money. Nos. 36 and 37 were found at different times amongst gravel dredged from the bed of the Thames, 38 and 39 in the Cuerdale hoard, and 40 was for many years prior to that discovery in Mr Sheppard's collection. The two following, although they do not bear the name of Alfred, or of any other king, are of the same class and date as the foregoing.

I know not how to explain the legend on 41; it is probably the name of a moneyer blundered. There is a coin, in the British Museum, similar to 42, but with a beardless bust and a blundered legend EREENER on the obverse: (Ruding, Pl. 15, FIG. 9). These are the earliest coins known from the mint of Lincoln. The date of the London coins I am inclined to fix almost immediately after the rebuilding of that city by Alfred in 881. It had been destroyed by the Danes nine years previously. There is another class of these coins much rarer than the above, which present the moneyer's name on their reverses. ÆLFRED REX Bust to the right.

43.

Both the monogram and the moneyer's

name on this piece appear to be blundered.

This type presents the names of the following moneyers:

AELFSTAN HEAEVVLF HEREVVLF

TILEVINE

VINVRDVL.

47. ÆLFRED REX

Bust to the right.

ÆƉELVF MO.

The monogram on this coin is certainly not of London, though, like the Lincoln monogram, formed on the same model. I cannot discern in it the name of any place of importance in Alfred's time; the most natural way of reading it seeming to be ROISENG, which may possibly indicate a mint at Rishangles in Sussex, anciently Ris-angra. It is a coin of very superior design to any of the London coins. Three specimens of it were found at Cuerdale, and are in the possession, respectively, of Mr Assheton, Dr Smith, and the British Museum. The present drawing was made from the two former, one coin supplying the defects of the other.

PL. IV, FIG. 6.

Before I proceed to the coins which are clearly the next in succession to the above, I must not omit to notice a singular coin which is figured in Hall's plates.

By the combination of the bust on the obverse, of a design similar to that of the London coins, with a reverse type peculiar to the coins of Edward the Elder, and the name of a moneyer which does not occur on any of those of Alfred, I was at one time induced to condemn the original of this engraving as a forgery. The discovery however of many of the originals of the figures in Hall's Plates, previously supposed fictitious, in the Duke of Devonshire's collection, taught me to hesitate in pronouncing decisions of this kind. The re-appearance too on a coin of Edmund from that collection, now in the British Museum, of a type previously supposed peculiar to the coins of Edward the Elder, and as far as we know disused during the reign of Athelstan, (the type of the flower), has shaken my suspicions of the genuineness of the coin now under discussion, which had arisen from the apparent inconsistency in the dates of its obverse and reverse types.

We now come to consider the coins of Alfred, without portraits, which appear of later date than any of those above described, and

Essays

again we have a connecting link between the two classes in the following curious and unique piece.

48. + EL ER ED RE A small cross; no inner circle. TILEVINE MONETA LONDONIA in monogram.

On the Lincoln coin (42) we had the name of the mint in monogram, and that of the moneyer written at full length. On this, the order is reversed, the name of the mint is written at length, and that of the moneyer in monograms, for I read them HE RE BE the greater part of the name HEREBERT.

50 + ELFREDRE

A small cross.

A large cross occupying the field of the coin with the letters CNVT attached to its extremities, and those of the word REX intercalated between them.

By the type of its reverse this piece is connected with that numerous class of the Cuerdale coins which I have elsewhere ascribed to one of the sea-kings who invaded England in the days of Alfred; (not, as Mr Hawkins seems to think, to that Cnut who was so famous in English history more than a century later;) Cnut was a name exceedingly common amongst the Danish princes, and there certainly was one of this name, contemporary with Alfred, a son of Ragnor Lodbrog and a sea-king. It is no fanciful or anagrammatic way of reading which I propose, but one by no means uncommon in Byzantine coins of the same period. It is simply taking the letters in the order in which the cross is formed CNVT. This reading has the unanimous sanction of the most eminent Continental numismatists, and I believe is now generally admitted by our own. In fact, no other has been or can be proposed, which has even the slightest probability to recommend it. This coin is not the least important link in the chain of proof that the lately discovered coins of Siefred or Sievert, and of this Cnut, are English.

51.

+ EL FR ED RE
VVINEMON

A small cross.
An ornament.

BRITISH MUSEUM:

PL. IV, FIG. 11.

This type seems to call for particular remark. Although in common with the rest it has the name and title of Alfred on the obverse, yet it has on its reverse a legend which seems to give us the name and title of Ethelstan followed by the name of a mint GELDA. This may be Geldestone in Norfolk, or it may be read EDELS tani Regis GELDA i. e. " tribute or money of king Ethelstan." I leave these conjectures to the reader's judgement, myself preferring the former as being most in analogy with other contemporary coins.

56.

+ EL FR ED RE
CVDBERHT

A small cross with a pellet in each
In two lines.

BRITISH MUSEUM.

Same types as the last.

BRITISH MUSEUM.

[angle.

PL. V, FIG. 5.

PL. V, FIG. 6.

Same types as the foregoing.